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Monday, February 9, 2015

Interview with Ron Shannon, Author of The Hedgerows of June

The Hedgerows of June is a suspenseful historical romance centering around the hotly contested Saint-Lô, France, in 1944. A British spy, and American expat, and a French Resistance operative must reunite children with their parents in this war-torn landscape while keeping their own secrets and resisting their own passions.

Today I'm pleased to host the author of this irresistible adventure, Ron Shannon.

JK: Can you fill us in on the historical background of The Hedgerows of June?What was happening before the
story begins?

RS: By late June, 1944, the Allies had
taken the beaches of Normandy. The Americans had driven the Germans from the
port city, Cherbourg, but not without heavy cost on both sides.The next American objective was to take
the town of Saint-Lô, the transportation hub for this
part of occupied France. The Germans were determined to defend Saint-Lô because
they were convinced it would be the key to the Allies’ victory. The
American inland attack would take place in the most inhospitable terrain of
Normandy, an area known as the hedgerows.

JK: The Hedgerows?

RS: The
Hedgerows are not what we think of when we think of hedges. They are not the
hedge plants that are pruned and trimmed into precision cuts.

JK: So it wasn't a garden. Where exactly did the Allies find themselves?

RS: It’s difficult to describe what the Americans encountered as soon as
they started their inland attack. This farmland has been around for a
millennium or more. The landscape consists of fields bordered by grey rock.
Think of a pile of rock running along all four sides of each field. These rock
rows are about three feet wide. Growing up through this rock is a mixture of
small trees, shrubs, grass and weeds that have grown from three to fifteen feet
high. It creates what the French call bocage, an enclosed field with only one
narrow entrance.

JK: Are there any roads in this maze?

RS: The
roads running alongside the hedges are very narrow, between four or five feet
wide. They're dirt roads with deep ruts from the traffic of horse-drawn wagons
to and from the fields.

JK: How did they transport equipment through there?

RS: Getting
equipment down the roads was difficult to impossible. But the difficulties
didn’t end there. The summer of 1944 was the wettest summer since 1900. The
weather was miserable and the roads were not dirt. They were mud.

JK: Wow. Misery makes for a great setting. What additional challenges did you give the characters?

RS: The
characters in The Hedgerows of June are faced with the same problems as the
American Army. They must get from a small town on the edge of the Hedgerows to
Saint-Lô.

JK: They
aren't going into battle?

RS: Not
battle, but the war is all around them. It’s like background noise, small
gunfire, explosions, and American fighter planes. The characters are trying to
stay one step ahead of the Americans, but they are running into the face of the
waiting Germans. That’s trouble because the German Army wants their precious
cargo—the four children they must get to Saint-Lô.

JK: Where
are the Germans?

RS: The
Germans are taking up defense positions in the hedges. That means they are
finding places to hide in the thick vegetation. The attacking Americans will
not be able to hide if they are expected to move forward. They will be wide
open.

JK: How can the Americans possibly overcome this no-win situation?

RS: The
Americans had no experience with his type of terrain. To say they weren't
prepared is an understatement. It would require cooperation between their armor
and their infantry, something they were not trained to do.

JK: Did the Americans have any advantage?

RS: Not
necessarily. The Germans were experienced. They had knowledge of the terrain
and the benefit it offered them to defend the region. They were also very loyal
and in some cases the most fanatical soldiers in the field.

JK: Were the Americans were better equipped?

RS: Again,
not necessarily. At this point in the war, the German Air Force was pretty much
nonexistent. The Americans did have an air force, but remember this is the
wettest summer since 1900. The miserable weather made it impossible to fly for
either reconnaissance or attack. The German soldier feared the American planes,
but the bad weather kept the planes on the ground. The Germans lacked heavy
artillery in Normandy, but they had guns. I mention one of their guns in the
novel, a rocket launcher, an odd looking thing nicknamed “Moaning Minnie.”

JK: Weren’t
there paratroopers, too?

RS: Paratroopers
did land behind enemy lines in advance of the attacking Americans, but they
were unable to hold their positions. Many of these paratroopers were lost. My
story includes a confrontation with a small group of paratroopers. It is a
graphic scene that changes one of the main characters. It brings her
face-to-face with the horror of this war and how the Germans defended the
bocage.

JK: How
did the Americans get through in the end?

RS: You
can imagine how difficult it was for the Americans to launch their attack into
the Hedgerows. Soldiers did use the roads, but tanks were another story.
Getting into the fields presented a problem. My characters were forced to crawl
into the fields. They were wide open if Germans were hiding in the hedges. The
same was true for the American soldier. At first the Americans used dynamite to
blast a hole in the hedgerows, but obviously an explosion did not go unnoticed
by the Germans. Someone came up with the idea of turning the tanks into plows.
They retrieved steel from the traps and blockades used by the Germans to defend
the beaches. The Americans welded the steel to the front of the tanks. They
literally plowed their way into the fields. American soldiers quickly learned
how to use the tanks as shields against enemy fire.

JK: Do your characters encounter all these techniques?

RS: The
war catches up to the characters and they are introduced to techniques used on
both sides. The war in the hedges is a series of skirmishes between small units
as the Americans make their way across this implausible battleground. As I
mentioned before, these skirmishes hang in the air like background noise. At
times the background noise takes on a life of its own. In one scene, Chris is
listening to distant gunfire. He is a musician and he compares it to a call,
followed by an answer. It’s small arms fire shared by men in a land that doesn’t
care about who they are or why they fight. The land, the bocage, will be there
long after they are gone and their causes are forgotten. Or at least that is
what Chris determines from what he hears.

JK: Where
does it all come together?

RS: The
characters’ destination is Saint-Lô. That is the town the Americans want to
conquer and that is the town the Germans are determined to defend.

JK: What is the result of the historical Battle of Saint-Lô?

RS: The
Americans manage to push back the Germans, but the tenacious Germans do not
lose their will to fight. The skirmishes are fierce and bloody. I’ve seen
pictures of roads and fields littered with the bodies of soldiers from both
sides. Thousands of casualties occur during July of 1944. The Germans are
outnumbered and many German soldiers are taken prisoner, but the defenses into
Saint-Lô are tight. The Germans are obsessive.

JK:July?

RS: July. I know the title mentions June. That is when the journey
and the adventure begin. I didn't adhere to the timeline of the battle. The
battle started on July 1, 1944, and Saint-Lô was taken by the middle of August. Even getting into the city was a challenge. The American fighter planes managed to attack. Bombs were dropped; heavy artillery was used as the city crumbled into ruins. The only structure that survived was
the church. The city was rebuilt later.